Finding My Way
by k2b
Summary: One percentage of the population have a soulmate. Lois doesn't think that finding she's one of them makes her particularly lucky.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer – **I own nothing.

**Notes **–Thanks to everyone who left me comments on Five Days More (and Five Days) you guys are awesome. I'm going away for a few days so I thought I'd post this before I left (gives me less of an opportunity to panic). It's a soulmate au which is new territory for me. Eventually it'll get a little weird but it's fun to write.

**/**

No one is more surprised than Lois when her soulmate's… name? … turns up printed on her skin. And by no one she means that she doesn't actually tell anyone so there is no one other than herself to be surprised.

The mark just appears one morning at her leg joint and she doesn't notice it until she's in the bathroom about to hop into shower. She's already slept late and the General's still home which means, like it or not, she's going to be on time for homeroom. She's tired and cranky, none of her homework is done and she already has a detention after school.

But petty concerns fall away when she catches sight of the mark as she leans into the stall to turn the water on and her blood runs cold. She has to step up to the mirror to study it, thanks to its inconvenient location. Five letters, five meaningless letters, darker than her skin and slightly raised. When she runs her fingers over them they tingle a little otherwise seeming content to act as if they've been there her whole life.

She stares at the mark as the mirror fogs up and the bathroom fills with steam, studying it, trying to make sense of it until the General bangs on the door and tells her that her ride is five minutes out and she _will_ be ready when it arrives. Fingers numb and clumsy she manages to dress herself, shutting the shower off without having stepped in it – not caring if she wanders around stinking all day. She considers telling her father she's sick and going back to bed, but lacks the energy for a fight.

Somehow she manage to be dressed and downstairs with her school gear just as her ride pulls up. Because the General does occasionally remember he's a father he hands her a piece of toast and pats her on the shoulder and tells her he'll see her for dinner.

_This is not what I wanted._

**/**

Eventually, after three weeks of keeping it to herself because she doesn't wants to be jerked around by what is essentially a creepy birth mark, she caves and tells the school counsellor – who convinces her to tell the General who takes her to an agent.

Which is how Lois finds herself sitting in a room that is a disturbing shade of peach with her father glowering at the impassive agent. The agent, Christie Shaw, tells her that it's not unusual for her soulmate to have not turned up in the system just yet, especially given her age. And there's a thousand other reason why he – or she – might be keeping to themselves for the time being.

Christie does remark that Lois' mark… name… whatever is a little odd. But distinctions do ultimately make it easier to find your soulmate. Which is why fingerprints are better than names – the database can match them so very quickly.

"Well, let's hope he has a finger print that he wants to share, then."

"Lo'," her dad says, voice low and tense. "Things will happen when they're meant to happen." Which Lois thinks is a bit rich coming from someone who has never had a soulmate, but she keeps her mouth shut because she knows he loved her mother and there's sullen and then there's cruel.

"What if I don't want anything to 'happen' at all," she says instead, slumping down in her chair further. She's never found the idea of 'forever and ever and ever' to be romantic, even if it's meant to be with someone who is your perfect match.

"You're not the first person to sit here and say that." Lois is so surprised she actually looks up at the agent, noticing a 'D' and part of an 'a' or an 'o' peeking out from under her collar. "You'd probably be surprised how many people are less than thrilled to find they have a soulmate. You'll find it's different when you actually meet him."

Lois snorts. "Doubt it," she says.

**/**

The General has her dropped her back at school for fourth period, parenting well and truly done for the semester. Lois dawdles her way to Algebra before deciding she has more important uses for her time than linear functions and hitches a ride back to the base.

Holed-up in her room she spends her afternoon reading the pamphlets and searching up more information online.

All of it, over and over, tells her that this is cause for joy. She is one of the 0.92% of the population who will find a soulmate… She is lucky… Somewhere out there is her perfect match… She will have everlasting happiness…

If all this is true, why does she feel like she's just been handed a prison sentence?

**/**

Apparently the General does still have some parenting in him because he turns up shortly after 2:30pm. "The school called." Of course they did. They're particularly vigilant about students missing classes.

"I take no responsibility for any buildings that may or may not have burned down."

He narrows his eyes but doesn't comment on her flippancy further and she's skipped enough school that he's given up shouting at her for it. "Have you called your sister, yet?"

"Lucy is the last person on the planet I want to know about this." The last but one. "Or Chloe."

"You'll have to tell them sooner or later."

Later works for Lois. Much, much later. Maybe when they're old and wrinkly and it doesn't matter anymore. "No. I don't. Is there something you wanted? I'm kind of busy." She has a couple more helpings of sugar-coated soulmate accounts to read.

"I've arranged for us to have dinner with a friend of mine and his wife." He pauses and Lois waits for the other shoe to drop, knowing what it's going to be anyway. "They're soulmates."

"I'm not going."

"I didn't say you had a choice."

She doesn't have a choice in much of anything these days, does she?

**/**

The retired Colonel Fisher and his wife, Dr. Fisher, live off-base in a pretty brick house with a large garden. Inside, no wall goes untouched by pictures of their three children. Everyone looks deliriously happy in their tiny wooden frames, not a fake smile from a single one of them. This is the kind of couple the pamphlets old up as being an example of the perfect soulmate couple.

Lois, eating slightly dry pot roast, has the sick sensation that she may be looking at her future in all its suburban glory. Fighting the urge to gag, she puts her fork down and pretends to listen the story about how the two of them met. She misses most of the tale but she does notice they don't mention the bonding portion of the experience, only the parts both immediately before and immediately after.

She's as curious about the process as she is repulsed by it. The pamphlets has described the ordeal in dry clinical language and the internet had taken the opposing route using a range of vivid and disturbing adjectives to illustrate what is essentially meant to be several days spent _sleeping_.

No, not a euphemism.

Colonel Fisher pats her on the shoulder and offers her a glass of wine that she accepts, ignoring her father's glare, but she quails when he asks about her mark. How is she meant to describe the location and talk about how she doesn't even know what it means?

The General, though, comes to her rescue. "What my Lo' isn't telling you is that her mark is quite 'intimately' placed." Though, as usual, his help is a little misplaced.

She can't quite help the blush that heats up her face but she hides it by sipping her wine. "I think it's his name," she says, voice hoarse. She doesn't tell them exactly what it says – what would the point be? She's going to be one of those people who can only have their mark explained by their soulmate.

The Fishers' marks are across their right thighs, not much above their knees. Hers is his first words to her and his is the co-orindates to her childhood home. "Took some figuring it out," Mrs Fisher says. She's rolled her shorts back to show Lois where the words are etched in her skin '_Hey! You can't be here!'_, likely still as distinct as they day they appeared. "But the marks are secondary, anyway." She reaches out and takes her husband's hand, smiling up at him.

Later she hugs Lois as she says goodbye on the porch. She pulls back, but keeps a grip on Lois. "Sweetheart, I know you probably feel like you've been handed a life sentence but I promise you it isn't. And I know it isn't much comfort now but you'll wake up one day and realise that it is a gift. I promise, _I promise_, it gets better."

Lois turns away to hide the tears that are starting to gather.

**/**

She studies the mark in her mirror – still the only place she can actually see the mark easily. It's low on her hip, low enough that it'll be covered by everything even a not too skimpy bikini. And somewhere out there, in the same place on his body, is something that be significant to her and her alone.

Kal-El.

**/**


	2. Chapter 2

**a/n:** I went to post this chapter and discovered it was unfinished. I then proceeded to nearly double it in length. Enjoy? (No Clark, yet. Chapter Three – pinkie swear)

Thank you to the wonderful reviews. They made me smile.

**(Further notes in my profile about the whole 'soulmate' thing as people seem a little befuddled.)**

**/**

Lois and The General are in Italy, having seen Lucy back to school after a brief holiday, when Christie calls. "I think we have a potential soulmate for you."

"What?" Almost immediately a pit opens at Lois' feet, like she might fall into it at any second. This is not the first time someone has been identified as a potential soulmate for her but so far they've all turned out to be duds belonging to someone else. This is, however, the first time in nearly six months that it's happened. Lois doubts this time will be any more fruitful than any other – if her soulmate was going to enter their name into the database, they would have by now.

"Her name is Kalila Elira de Krom, the connection being through her name matching your mark and her mark matching the town you were born in." Christie is breathless and excited.

"Her?" Lois had specified that her preferences tended toward the opposite gender but that she couldn't rule out a female soulmate. She licks her lips and tries to loosen her grip on the phone. "I don't think…" In her bones she know this isn't her soulmate and that has nothing to do with her being a girl.

"I know, I know, but Lois just meet her. You never know."

**/**

The General is not pleased but he puts her on a plane to Toronto complaining that she's too young to be making this trip for this reason, but as he can't afford to leave with her he doesn't have much of a choice. As a compromise he programs her uncle's number into her phone, though, given that Uncle Gabe lives in Kansas, she's not quite sure what that'll do if there's a problem.

Kalila Elira de Krom meets Lois at the airport. She has the prettiest hair Lois has ever seen, long and dark with a slight wave, and part of her itches to be able to run her fingers through it. "Call me Kally," the girl says. "You're not what I expected."

Lois pulls her small suitcase off the baggage claim. "What were you expecting?"

"I don't know. Is that weird?" She has eyes to match her hair, dark and liquid, thoughtful.

**/**

Kally is two years older than Lois has had her mark all of two weeks and it might be hidden but it's across her ribs. Soulmates do occasionally have marks in differing locations, appearing at different times but it's just one more mark against Kally being Lois'.

They stand in Kally's tiny apartment in the small space between the couch and the television. "I don't know how this works," Kally admits.

Lois snorts. "No one knows how this works. I'm pretty sure they've been making this up as they go along." She's had her mark for 30 months and Christie seems a little desperate to match her with _someone_. In this day and age unusual for anyone to go so long without bonding, let alone without even meeting their soulmate.

Tentatively Kally holds out a hand, palm facing upwards, trembling. Lois, mostly convinced that this is not her soulmate, reaches out calmly and presses her hand to Kally's. Unsurprisingly, nothing happens and the two of them are left standing on a bright handwoven rug, looking like idiots.

"Oh. That's disappointing."

Lois lets herself fall backwards on to the lumpy couch. "Don't take it personally. I'm pretty sure I'm just a dud."

Kally sits down beside her, one leg tucked under herself, and reaches out lightly brushing down her cheek with one finger. "No. You're incredible. I'm sure whoever is looking for you has a very good reason to have not shown up yet. If not, they don't deserve you."

Lois takes Kally's hand and kisses her knuckles. Soulmates, bonded or not, like to have touch reciprocated and Lois knows from personal experience just how twitchy you are when you don't get that physical contact. "So what do you do for fun around here?"

**/**

Kally takes her out to meet a group of local unbonded soulmates and Lois drinks all of them under the table – despite being the youngest in the group and very much underage. She'd never admit it, but it's nice to spend time with a group of people who understand living with the constant unknown and the exhaustion of wondering when exactly that one person is going to step out of the crowd.

Lois watches Kally dance as if she hadn't ruined her make-up twice with tears while they were getting ready. "I hoped so much," she'd admitted. "And, you, you're perfect." She dabbed under her eyes to remove the running mascara. "Just not for me I guess."

Comfort isn't really, Lois' strong suit but she'd reached out and squeezed Kally's shoulder. "It'll happen." Her lips quirked up in the mirror as she met Kally's eyes, red and watery. "Or so that's what they tell me."

**/**

Three months, four long emails and seven phone calls later, Kally finds her soulmate, Nita. For the first time what Lois feels is neither apprehension nor repulsion, but jealousy curling through her stomach. Kally's voice is full of bright joy as she tells Lois about being bonded and the inherent strangeness of being connected to another person.

"I guess this explains why you didn't answer my last email." She keeps her voice dry so as not to betray the rising bile in the back of her throat.

"You're not getting rid of me that easily. Even once you find your soulmate you're stuck with me. _Forever_." Kally draws out the last word in a deep growl that tumbles straight into a giggle.

The knot forming across Lois' back eases abruptly. "And on that creepy note…" Twenty seconds later she hangs up on Kally's laughter.

She's glad for her friend but Kally's bonding brings to mind the search for her own soulmate and growing thought that maybe she hasn't found him because neither of them want to be found. Most soulmates find each other within a year of being marked, but Lois still falls short of longest wait – nearly twenty five years – and as impatient as she usually is, she thinks maybe she can afford to wait a little longer.

**/**

The next time Christie calls Lois refuses to meet whoever it is that they've found. "Unless you're absolutely certain…" Lois sucks in a deep breath, "I don't want to know."

A hundred years ago, the average time it took to find someone's soulmate was close to five years – two more than Lois has been waiting. Maybe she's meant to be traditional or something.

Or maybe she really is a dud. Either way, the very last thing she wants to be doing it traipsing across the planet for yet another disappointment.

**/**

Every time she switches school, it has be listed on her transcripts that she's an unbonded soulmate. She gets used to being called to meet the nurse and the counsellor within days of finding her way around to receive a (mostly) metaphorical questioning. Some schools have 'support groups' that she steadfastly refuses to join – they're full of bright people who care just a little too much, who understand just a little too much, who she's in danger of getting a little too attached to…

For most of her senior year, they're in Washington and the General disappears for long stretches of time to projects that he couldn't talk to her about even if she cared to listen. Both the counsellor and nurse at Lois' school are worse than useless. As accustomed to sitting in uncomfortable armchairs and couches as Lois is, she prefers to avoid both offices as much as possible. In fact she prefers to avoid school with its tired teachers and acidic student body as much as possible.

Sometimes it's easier to 'borrow' some money from the General to catch a redeye flight up to Toronto and spend a week or so sleeping on Kally and Nita's couch, doing homework if the mood strikes but mostly not, wandering the city while they're in class, finding parties in the strangest places.

The first time she goes the General storms up after her and drags her back to Washington. The second time he orders her back with threats of grounding and cut allowance. The third time he just ignores her absence and pretends not to be surprised when she does turn up sitting opposite him at breakfast a few days later, hungover and bad tempered.

Contrary to popular opinion she does complete most her assignments and passes most of her classes – even if she's not physically present. Every time the counsellor tracks her down she smiles and tells him to stop worrying, that she's doing just fine.

She loses track of her trips but it's on one of them near to the end of the school year (or possibly just after graduation) that her phone wakes her up a little after 2pm. The window is almost permanently open but does little to alleviate the effects of the heatwave while the broken air con seems to make the problem worse. Lois has been sleeping fitfully, dreaming of Kansas – ten degrees cooler according to the weather maps. Maybe a trip to see Chloe on her way back home would be sensible.

"Where are you?" the General asks when she answers.

"Toronto. I'm here for the weekend." Never mind that the weekend for her started on Thursday morning and it's now Monday afternoon. She sits up, yawning, rubbing her eyes one-handed. "Why?" Now she's eighteen, he technically can't do anything about her sojourns to see her friends, his disapproval of them notwithstanding.

"Lo', Gabe and Chloe are dead."

Surely he didn't just say what she just heard. "What?" In the kitchen, Kally has been cooking – probably that new vegetarian dish she's been wanting to try – but now she puts down the spatula and looks over at Lois, frowning.

He hesitates now and Lois allows herself a few moments of hope. "I'm sorry. I know how close you and your cousin were."

No. No, no, no. No. Chloe isn't dead. Surely this is some elaborate game. But the General hasn't told a joke his entire life, he wouldn't start now. Nor would he lie, not about this.

"How?" her voice cracks but she refuses to cry.

"I'll have someone book you on the next available flight. Make sure one of those friends of yours drives you to the airport," he says instead of answering the question. "I am sorry, Lo'."

Several minutes later, Kally takes the phone from her numb fingers, setting it on the coffee table. "What is it?" she asks. "What's wrong?"

But Lois doesn't understand – so how can she be expected to explain? "Can you – can you drive me to the airport?"

**/**

A week later, Lois sits on her bed staring at the clothes she's chosen for the funeral. Navy skirt and blazer and a cream coloured blouse. She's not crying but her hands are shaking and her head is pounding. Nausea is snaking its way up to the back of her throat.

"Hey." Lucy sticks her head around Lois' door, unconcerned that her sister is sitting there in her underwear. Her eyes are bloodshot and her mascara is already smudged. "The General says 'fifteen minutes'."

"Great." She doesn't move for nine of those minutes. And when she does, it isn't the formal outfit that looks awful on her that she dresses in, but jeans, a red blouse and a leather jacket.

Three minutes before they're due to leave for Smallville, Lois slides out the door, escaping the notice of her father and her sister. Four minutes later she's driving through the streets of Metropolis, ignoring the ringing of her phone and the way the cars in front of her are blurring in and out of focus.

Today would be a really _swell_ day for her soulmate to turn up. If nothing else it'll be a really _awesome_ distraction. But he's nowhere to be seen, is he?

**/**


	3. Chapter 3

**Note:** Just a reminder if you have any questions there are some notes in my profile. Some things will also become clearer as we go along. :)

**NB:** Some dialogue lifted directly from 4x01

**/**

No one expects to find their soulmate, naked and suffering from amnesia, in a field surrounded by broken corn stems and the smell of ozone. Lois is no different.

At first she's worrying about the fact that the naked guy might be hurt – certainly he seems a little disorientated – and taking great care not to _look_. He seems mostly fine, physically, from what she can _see_ but a hospital is probably a good idea. For the amnesia and the fact that he's been wandering around naked in a cornfield. Didn't Chloe say there was some sort of hospital for the legions of unstable somewhere in Smallville?

Only as she's settling the blanket around his shoulders does she notice the smudge on his hip. Even then she almost discards it as being irrelevant which is hilarious because she's spent so long wondering if she'd ever work out who her soulmate was based on the fact that she'd never get to actually see the mark until she got him naked (and presumably, by that point, she'd already know he was her soulmate).

She'll also never admit to anyone that she has memorised her fingerprints, inking them out and pressing them to notepaper, tracing the lines until they're etched into the back of her eyelids. There's no way of knowing, of course, that it'd be fingerprints but she doubts the world would be kind enough to give her soulmate her name or even her first words to him. She can consider herself lucky that it's her fingerprint and not something more obscure.

Without thinking she reaches out to tap the mark but before she can make contact he catches her wrist and pulls it back. Skin to skin contact should be enough, you don't need to touch marks to activate the bond but whatever Lois might have expected to happen, doesn't. The pamphlets had warbled on and on about 'the revelation' – which has spectacularly failed to happen.

"Don't do that." He's like a wall of muscle. An immovable wall.

"You're my soulmate." She tells him, tugging her hand free. "That's my fingerprint. You're my soulmate." Maybe, just maybe she's not saying these words for him but for herself.

He tilts his head at her but doesn't answer.

"Kal-El?"

"Yes?"

He's still as blank as they come so she does the only thing she can think of – she shoves him into her car, taking care not to touch him again. Maybe she's mistaken. Maybe his mark is just very similar to her fingerprint… and is in the same place as her mark.

He spends the entire trip staring straight ahead. Lois spend the whole trip trying not to scream in frustration. Fitting then, that this is the way she meets her soulmate: alone, confused and naked, all while she's trying to find out what happened to her cousin. Because something normal like bumping into each other in street or spilling coffee on him in a café would be for people who aren't Lois Lane.

Karma is for people who just aren't that lucky.

**/**

When the redheaded woman claims him and runs off before she can stop them Lois knows that fate finds her particularly hilarious. Clark. Clark Kent. As in Chloe's best friend and sometime crush. As in the guy who's meant to be helping her find justice for her cousin's murder.

This is the amnesiac soulmate she found in a field after he was hit by lightning.

"Tell Nita I'm stealing you back," she tells Kally as she makes yet another attempt to find the Kent farm. "At least you're normal… within a relative degree of normal, of course. Why should your soulmate have all the luck?"

Kally's known her long enough now that she just ignores the rambling. "Are you _sure_ it's him?"

This time Lois lets her silence be the answer.

"But why wouldn't he react? You touched him, right?"

"They have stories of people touching their soulmates – unbonded – when unconscious and nothing happening. Something to do with both being cognizant enough to accept the bond which is not as automatic as everyone thinks. I guess amnesia is the same." Lois gets to be one of those strange stories in a pamphlet all of her own: 'What to do if your soulmate loses their memory'. Awesome.

That one doesn't exist, yet. She should know – she's read all of the ones that do.

"But the name thing is weird. You really do like making things difficult for yourself."

"I'll ask him about it when I see again. If he remembers who he is. If not, I can ask his mom." And she's found him, or at least where he lives if the sign reading 'Kent Farm' is to be believed. Trust her soulmate to live out in the dusty back end of nowhere. "Gotta go, I have a soulmate to find and a cousin to find justice _for_."

"Call me if you need me. Nita's talking to her dad again so we can borrow money for tickets if you want us there." Somewhere in the background, but still close to the phone, Nita protests.

As soon as the line disconnects, Lois regrets it. At least Kally makes for good back up. Without her, Lois is facing this alone in unfamiliar territory no one on her six but she can't walk around with her phone attached to her ear. Unfortunately.

She pulls her car up to a pretty yellow house and parks. Before going in, she takes several moments to catch her breath. This is it, this is the moment that has been three years coming, the moment that everyone has told her all the stress and anxiety will finally make sense.

But actually it isn't. Right now, Lois' most important task is to find out what happened to Chloe and make sure the person who caused it suffers. She's just going to have to explain to Clark – or _Kal-El_ – that any bonding will have to wait until Chloe has justice. She's sure he will understand.

Providing, of course, that he has his memory back. If not, the point will be moot because they won't be able to bond and her investigation will take a different path.

She takes another deep breath just before calls out to Mrs. Kent, making a crack about call-waiting to the stressed woman.

**/**

Martha Kent very calmly and very politely does not give Lois an opportunity to say anything about anyone's soulmates and she doesn't budge on where Clark is or what he's doing. She simply thanks Lois for saving her son and firmly shows her the door.

Lois knows decorated brass who aren't that efficient.

**/**

Standing over Chloe's grave he looks at her like a puzzle that he can't quite solve (later he'll accuse her of the same). His awareness of who he is makes the pull to tell him who she is so much stronger.

"Glad to see we've moved beyond the clothing optional stage of our relationship. I'm surprised you even remember who I am," she says, though she's not sure he does. She can almost sense the bond between them, wanting to form, like an itch but beyond a puzzled frown he shows no sign of knowing who she is.

"Chloe's cousin. Nicorette addiction. Can't stand uncomfortable silences." He's frowning but whether that's because he knows anything and isn't saying or because Chloe was important to him too, she can't be sure.

"I guess this means your synapses are all firing again." Or not. _Soulmates_, idiot. But Lois guesses this just means she's still the butt joke of fate. Does this mean she should tell him?

Does she want to tell him?

"Look, I can't explain my actions over the past few days but Chloe was my best friend. You're not the only one who misses her."

"Just the only one doing something about it." And that rankles, because she shouldn't be the only one who smells a cover up all over Chloe's murder.

"I get the feeling you like to do things yourself."

"My dad raised me to be independent and self-sufficient." Maybe it's better that he doesn't remember that they're soulmates because this way there's no confusion, no mix up. She can always tell him after they've found Chloe's killer and turned the evidence over to the police or the FBI.

"That'd be one way to describe you."

He's lucky that she doesn't want to risk activating the bond in truth, otherwise she'd have socked him for that last comment. "You know the only thing I like about you at the moment is your mom. You can't possibly be as weird as I think you are with a mom that cool."

"Look, why don't you let me help you find out who did this to Chloe? Come on, you can stay at our house while you're in town." When he's wheedling he's almost cute. She almost sees the part of him that's meant to be part of her. Almost. Not that it matters, she has a job to do and she can't let her inconveniently timed soulmate screw this up for her. "It beats living out of your car."

She shouldn't. She really, really shouldn't. Being that close to him, under the same roof. If nothing else, curiosity will be her worst enemy. "Thanks." But the temptation of a decent bed and cooked meals is a little too much to resist. "But you should know I don't pay attention to curfews and I never make my bed." Their conversation has slipped away from her, standing here by Chloe's grave they should be more respectful. "I'll give you some time alone." And herself some space to catch her breath.

She's heading back to her car, already cursing herself for accepting his invitation and using plotting the best way to avoid him – in his own house – to distract her from her grief. "Lois!" She turns back not sure if she's hoping he's going to tell her he knows he's her soulmate or that she can't stay with them. But his words surprise her. "Chloe's still alive."

Maybe she should have checked a little more thoroughly to make sure he hasn't spent the summer in that hospital, after all.

**/**

"Is there something you want to tell me?" Her father asks days later as they speed away from the Kent farm and towards Fort Ryan.

"Aside from the fact that Chloe was murdered and you're not letting me do anything about it? No." Lois leans her head against the window, watching the stalks of corn speed past.

"So you're telling me that Kent boy is not your soulmate?" She hates that the only time the General seems to even vaguely have a clue about her life is when it concerns her soulmate.

She doesn't look away from the corn. "Don't be ridiculous." Her breath fogs the glass as she speaks. "I think if we were soulmates we'd like each other more."

He sighs. "As you say."

"Why is it that you choose _this_ when you want to be interested in my life?" She's aware of the way her fists are balled in her lap but more concerned with keeping the stinging in her eyes at bay.

"I'm always interested in your life, Lo'."

Lois lifts her head off the window and looks over at him but his eyes are on the road and he's not looking at her. "And if I did find my soulmate in 'Small Town, Nowhere'?"

"Then that would be a cause for celebration."

She rolls her eyes and turns back to watching the corn go past. She thinks they're probably nearly at Fort Ryan but still finds the endless farmland disorientating. "Sure."

**/**

Clark Kent is the most annoying person on the face of the planet.

Chloe just laughs. "He grows on you."

"Yeah. Like mould." But she's too glad to have Chloe alive to drive the point home.

The truth can wait for another day.

**/**

**A/N:** Don't hurt me! (But you didn't think it was going to be that easy, did you?)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes:** You'll notice that there's time skips all through this – rather than re-covering every time Lois and Clark cross paths on the show, I'm just going to go ahead and play fastball with the timeline. I hope the pacing doesn't throw anyone too much. Further notes in my profile.

**/**

The cafeteria at Smallville High is pretty much exactly like every school cafeteria Lois has been in, in every US school. At east this one is made more bearable by the fact that she can have lunch with Chloe and Lana – and by the fact that Clark is currently nowhere near it, making her day less stressful. There has been no accidental bonding (or deliberate bonding) and Lois still has no idea what to do with Clark. She's currently ignoring the problem in the hopes that somehow either the answer will come to her or it'll vanish entirely.

In the meantime, Smallville High's only other set of soulmates are taking a seat three tables across. Ayda and Ben are a fully bonded pair that don't care who knows it. Their respective marks run just under their jawlines and are each other's full name – with no trace of ambiguity in either case. They're particularly notable for wandering around linked only by their pinkies and for the way they – like they are now – feed each other in the cafeteria.

"Oh, god, kill me now." Lois make a mental note to have someone shoot her if she and Clark ever act like that. Nita, maybe – she's good with guns.

"I think it's sweet," Chloe says.

Lana frowns as Ben kisses Ayda's fingertips. "Is that normal?"

Chloe opens her mouth to answer but Lois gets in first. "Not even remotely."

"I thought soulmates liked touching each other?"

Thanks to an incredibly high death rate, along with the often accompanying admissions to Belle Reve, Smallville's population of soulmates is one of the lowest in the country – around 0.54%. Clearly, Lois reflects, that translates into a general lack of knowledge. But surely Chloe, with her intense desire to know everything about everything has researched the subject?

Apparently not as much as she should have. "Soulmates like touching, period. But even newly bonded soulmates should know how to behave in public." She allows her voice to rise at the end of the statement but neither Ayda nor Ben respond.

Lois turns her attention back to her plate but she's caught Lana's attention. "How do you know they're bonded? I thought that was supposed to be private."

Back to the door, Lois is nonetheless very aware that Clark has just walked in, and is heading their way.

"Doesn't it involve both of them getting naked?" Pink spreads across Chloe's cheeks and she stares resolutely at the salad on her plate.

Lois stares at Chloe, beside her, Lana seems to be doing the same thing. Clark's tray hits the table with a soft slap. "Um…" he pauses in the act of sitting down.

Lois rolls her eyes. "Relax, Smallville, we're just talking about soulmate bondings, and how you know someone's been through it." Ms Stewart, the French teacher, is now telling Ayda off for licking Ben's fingers. Lois pushes her tray away, deciding she's had more than enough to eat for today. Or this week.

Her brain tries to send her images of her licking parts of Clark. Which. Ew.

Clark ducks his head and shifts on his seat, fingers clenching involuntarily around his fork. Lois wonders if his mark is as itchy as hers right now. "They're already touching," he says.

"Ambiguous," Lana says, eyes straying to the slightly bent fork in Clark's hands.

Lois watches Ben, now sitting across from Ayda, pout. "Not really."

**/**

"You should write an article on soulmates for the Torch."

Lois blinks at Chloe from across the island in the Kent's kitchen. On a third side, Clark actually, physically, flinches. Lois fights the urge to kick him, mostly because succeeding would probably result in her accidentally bonding the two of them together.

"I'm sorry?" she says, painfully aware of _her_ soulmate staring at her cousin like she's just lit herself on fire.

"Soulmates. You seem to know a lot about the topic… but if you really don't want to…"

"Sorry, Chlo', it's really not something I'm interested in." She glances over at Clark to find him studying her, his brow pulled down. She turns away quickly. There's no evidence of people finding their soulmates by staring into each other's eyes but the way she catches Clark staring at her sometimes makes her wonder.

Mrs. Kent entering the kitchen to ask if Chloe and Lois are staying for dinner breaks the spell a little but Lois spends the rest of the evening uncomfortably aware of everything Clark does.

**/**

"I really think you should do it."

Lois stops swinging on the chair in the Torch's office to look at Chloe. "Do what?" Right now, she's waiting for Chloe to be finished putting together the latest issue of the paper and trying to not concentrate on the fact that Clark probably not too far out of hearing range. Who knows when he might wander in from football practise?

"Write that article about soulmates."

Wait. "What?"

Chloe's frowning at her now. "I think you should write that article about soulmates." Her tone suggests exaggerated patience. "You have those friends, Kally and Nita. You could use them as sources. And Ayda and Ben. Plus you seem to know everything."

Sit down in the room with a lovesick Ben and Ayda and have them tell soppy stories about themselves? "No."

"I'm your editor. Technically you should be writing what I tell you to write." Chloe leans over her desk, around her computer to study Lois.

Even talking to Kally would be painful enough and Kally knows the entire pathetic tale. "I'm not writing about soulmates, Chloe." Not when Clark might read it.

"Why not?"

Lois has many faults, she knows, and one of those faults is speaking without thinking. "Because I have a soulmate."

For several seconds all that can be heard is the soft hiss of the standard fan. When her brain catches up to her mouth, Lois stands up and walks over to the nearest filing cabinet. She rifles through it and ignores the way she can feel Chloe's eyes burning into the back of her head.

"What?"

She hadn't heard Chloe move but there's a warm hand on her arm and when she glances up, her cousin's eyes are wide. She just shrugs. "Don't get worked up. It's no big deal."

"No big deal? Lois, this is a huge deal! You have a soulmate. Here we all are talking about soulmates and you… you never said a word… why not?"

She can't blame Chloe for sounding hurt if their positions had been reversed, Lois would probably feel the same – all logical reasoning aside. "No one wants to think about how they get no say in who they be with." These days, all she can think about is Clark, and how he's supposed to be the one who she's going to be with him for the rest of her life. How is it she can't stand him?

"Do you know who he is?" Chloe's voice is soft and still a little hurt.

Lois studies her hands carefully and thinks about answering honestly. "No," she lies, "no idea."

**/**

On reflection the fact that Chloe has seemed to have dropped the topic is awfully convenient. But Lois is too busy settling into MetU and deciding whether or not to join the unbonded soulmates network to really pay attention.

They're friendly, she'll grant them that but she's been down this road with every high school and isn't looking to repeat the experience with college. The collective repressed curiosity takes a lot of beating before she can convince them she isn't one of those irritatingly enthusiasts.

**/**

The Sunday after Lois moves into her dorm room finds Chloe sitting on the end of her bed while Lois nurses a wicked hangover and longs for coffee from the Talon. Chloe has brought her laptop and is typing away while Lois sips bad coffee from the campus cafeteria and waits for the pain killers to kick in.

"So, I was thinking we could start looking for your soulmate."

Blinking stupidly through the note of pain behind her eyes Lois takes a second to process. "What?" She hasn't thrown up yet and is quite proud of the fact but Chloe's statement might just do the trick. "No."

"There's a database, right? We can start there." Chloe hits a few keys. "Their security isn't great. She hits a few more. And here we are… or here you are: Lois Lane."

That sinks in quickly and Lois leaps across the bed, slamming the lid shut, as coffee sloshes across the bedspread. Lois swears and fumbles through her drawers for a spare towel while Chloe sits, wide-eyed and stunned.

Clark has never been entered into the database – Lois has checked specifically for him by name and any identifying features she can think of since meeting him. But Chloe knows Clark better than anyone; if anyone could read between the lines of Lois' profile and figure it out, it'd be her.

"Lois?"

"Don't you think if he was in the database, I'd know by now?" Adrenaline has pushed her headache back, leaving her thoughts clear but her heart pounding.

Chloe reaches for her computer but Lois holds on to it tight. "Chloe, I don't want to know. Please, please don't do this." She opens the computer's lid and her face pops up on the screen along with all the details the agency feels is necessary to help her identify her soulmate.

"Finding your soulmate is meant to be a good thing. I don't understand why you're so against emotional fulfilment." But Chloe is not making any attempt to take her computer back or see what's on the screen.

Lois closes the browser but isn't sure what else she can do. Nonetheless, the words sting. "Don't. Don't go there. You have no idea."

"But—"

"Chloe! Stop! Just… stop." She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. "_Please_. I know you think that you want to know everything but please let me have this one thing."

"I can keep a secret, you know," Chloe says, leaning back.

"So let me have this one! This is my future, Chlo', my entire life. Let me deal with him when I'm ready to deal with him." She's panting a little and the thumping in her head is back along with the nausea.

"Okay."

"Thank you."

Chloe nods but keeps pouting. "Can I see your mark, at least?"

"No." At Chloe's raised brow she sighs. "It's here." She points. "So unless you want to see me without underwear…"

"Intimate."

"You have no idea." Of course, she's seen Clark naked so she knows where and what his mark is but until she touches him skin-to-skin – or he her – he's unlikely to see hers until she shows him.

"Did you know my parents were… are… soulmates?" Chloe asks after a short pause. She doesn't look up, tracing the pattern on Lois' bedspread.

"The General never mentioned it." Tragic then, what happened, but maybe it explains a little why neither her cousin nor her uncle ever mention what happened to Moira Sullivan.

Chloe's shoulders rise and fall in a shrug. "I'm not sure he knows. They never really talked about it – but they have each other's fingerprints… there." She points to a spot just above her shoulder blade. "I don't believe in the romance of it but I do remember how happy they were before…" she glances up at Lois' face. "You have a chance to be—"

"Chloe!" A memory of Clark the last time she saw him smile floats into view.

She holds up her hands. "Okay, okay, I'll stop."

Lois doubts this is the end of the discussion and she makes a mental note to call Christie and have her delete her profile in case Chloe decides to break her promise.

**/**


	5. Chapter 5

**Note:** Sorry it took so long! Life has been kicking me lately. Also sorry this is short.

**/**

The pain starts as a heartburn that Lois attributes to the incredibly awkward breakfast she's sharing with the General and Lucy. But the location is wrong, too far over and too much like a dull throb, too much like there's a band across her lungs…

Clark!

She drops the knife she's using to butter the slice of toast, fingers numb and cold – like they're not getting enough blood.

"Lo'? Are you okay?" her father asks, frowning. Lucy, who's been sulking about the place is actually looking directly at her sister.

Lois ignore both of them. "I have some phone calls I forgot to make." She doesn't stumble on her way back to the small room she's sharing with Lucy which is a mercy. She locks the door and collapses on her twin bed.

The pain is not, as a matter of fact, agonising – no worse than heartburn – but for her to be feeling anything at all he must be in incredible agony. No. He's dying. _Dying_. Half a world away her soulmate is dying.

Her hands are being uncooperative and it takes two tries to hit the right entry in her contacts list. She's not expecting him to answer – _dying_ – and he doesn't. So she tries Chloe. Then Mr. and Mrs. Kent. Lana. The Kent Farm. The Talon apartment. The Talon itself (she gets an answer but all anyone can tell her is that Lana isn't upstairs). No one picks up and at this point if anyone connects the dots they'll probably get a pretty clear picture of the situation. But she doesn't care because Clark is dying.

No.

_Dead_.

**/**

However long she sits on the edge of her bed, staring at the ugly carpet, she doesn't know. But she knows when he takes his first breath. She knows that his heart starts beating in the same moment.

When she looks up the alarm clock on Lucy's bedside stand shows minutes – at most – have passed, not hours or days. But that's not good. Because being dead for even a few minutes, won't that cause brain damage? This far away she doesn't know anything other than he's alive…

She dials through the list of numbers again, still receiving no answer.

Forcing herself to wait (he's still breathing, she doesn't know much but it'll have to do), she checks out the websites for both The Ledger and The Daily Planet both reporting that there are unconfirmed reports of an active missile silo in Smallville.

"I thought," she says through clenched teeth, standing in her bedroom door, "that all the missile silos in Smallville had been deactivated."

The General looks up at her over his newspaper. "They always keep a few active for defence purposes."

"Well one of them just activated itself in Smallville. And now I can't reach anyone there."

The General puts down his newspaper which a careful precision that tells Lois he's as concerned with that titbit as she is – if for different reasons. Even Lucy, huddled over the ancient desktop, looks up. "I'll make some calls," he says.

While he's calling whoever it is he calls, Lois retreats to her room and dials Chloe again. This time her cousin picks up, voice full of tearful relief as she gives Lois more detail about the entire event than the General probably ever will. Clark had actually been shot but was apparently alive and well and at home with his parents and Lana. Chloe's voice shakes as she relates her day.

"What were you calling about?" Chloe asks, off-hand when she's finished talking about her brush with the anti-meteor freak. "Sorry, kind of got off topic there."

"Just calling to see how you were," Lois says, falling backwards across the tiny bed. "Sounds like Smallville got even crazier since I left." She lets herself breathe easier but anxiety is still churning in her stomach and a headache is forming behind her eyes.

"You know it. Anyway, I gotta go. I should probably check on Clark."

"Yeah, bye." Lois ends the call, staring up at the crack in the ceiling. This place really is a dump but apparently the local base isn't really equipped for housing a three star general and his two teenage daughters.

She tries not think about Clark but with the adrenaline draining away, exhaustion starts tugging. She closes her eyes and drifts off to somewhere repeating to herself over and over that he isn't dead.

**/**

The next time she sees Clark he's alive and well and kissing his girlfriend. Locking lips with Lana or not, seeing him sitting there in the sun is enough to dispel the last of the chill of his 'death'. He's alive enough to be annoyed with her and she revels in it.

Of course, she then proceeds to experience her own brush with death.

**/**

She flirts with A.C. because he is hot, he saved her life and he is clearly interested in her. But mostly she wants to see how Clark's going to react. Which probably makes her petty, but she _wants_ him to be jealous, wants him to acknowledge the latent bond even if only subconsciously.

And he _does_.

Lana and Chloe might roll their eyes and hide smirks but Lois is quietly stunned by the huffy foot stomping, the territorial glaring and the suspicion. Also annoyed, because she can be annoyed at him for not noticing they're soulmates as well as for acting jealous around the guy she's meant to be dating. That's very much allowed.

A.C. has a mark of his own, 'Mera', the letters barely showing along his hair line behind his right ear, and have been there a month. He indulges Lois' curiosity, letting her examine them, but when she runs her fingertips along them he catches her wrist and pulls her hand forward. To anyone other than your soulmate the mark feels mostly numb but that doesn't mean it's not an intimate move.

"I'd show you mine but I still have some girlish modesty," she tells him. He's the first person she's really told aside from her father and saying so out loud is far less frightening than she'd ever thought. But, she supposes, A.C. might just understand.

His eyebrows go up. "I've seen you in a swimsuit."

She can't help but laugh at that and a little levity is nice. "Exactly."

Once her meaning clicks he laughs, too. "Okay, where?"

She touches the mark through her clothes, down low on her hip, almost at the leg join. Her skimpiest thongs don't hide it, but everything else does.

"Have you met him?" His hand settles on her waist, well away from the mark, and squeezes gently.

"Yes. He doesn't know. I haven't told him." All at once the subject is moving into dangerous territory, treading too close to the swampy area of her feelings. She holds her breath but it doesn't do her any good.

"Clark?"

"How did you—" she bites the words off, but it's already too late. She grumbles at herself in annoyance for ever letting her fears show.

"When you're in the room his entire focus is on you and you alone." A.C.'s closer now, his eyes large and intent. Part of her is comparing them to Clark's but she pushes the thoughts back.

"That's a lie." And if it isn't, the only reason Clark focuses on her at all is because she annoys him.

"No, it isn't." A.C. pulls her closer, her side against his chest. Lightly he presses a kiss to her cheek and touches his forehead to her temple. "I wish we'd met at a different time."

She turns slightly and places a hand on his chest. "No, you don't."

Under her palm his chest rumbles with his laughter. "No, I don't. But I'm glad we met anyway."

**/**

**NB:** For those who've asked, the next chapter will be an interlude from Clark's pov (sorta).


	6. Interlude 1

**Note:** Here we go, a brief insight into Clark's thoughts.

**/**

1.

Contrary to what Lois believes he does actually go to an agent when his soulmate mark appears. The problem is that the agent asks so many questions that Clark can't answer. Some can be explained away by his adoption but so many of them could potentially give away his secret and it becomes suspicious when Clark doesn't answer them.

"I'm sorry," his dad says, eventually. "But we're going to have to withdraw Clark's profile."

"I'd have to recommend against this," the agent says, but he reluctantly hands over a stack of pamphlets and removes all information about Clark from the database.

"I'm sorry, son," his dad apologises on the way home. "But we can't take any risks."

"It's fine, Dad, I understand." Despite his words, he knows his tone is sullen. "She might not be human, anyway." He's from another planet, it's not so strange that his soulmate might hail from further away than Metropolis.

(further away than Metropolis, yes; another planet, no. Clark finds there are things you just _know_)

**/**

2.

"You'll just have to trust it'll all work out," his dad tells him when he asks.

"What if she doesn't want to be bonded to an alien?" he asks, voicing his deepest fear. If she's human she might want nothing do with him or she might turn him over to the government. Or any other one of a thousand mights he dreams up when he has too much time on his hands.

His dad claps his on the shoulder. "My understanding is that whoever she is, you being from another planet probably isn't going to be a problem. Which, when you think about it, makes her a pretty special person."

His father is right, of course. Lois will barely blink at the word 'alien', more curious than concerned.

**/**

3.

"She isn't your soulmate, is she?" his mom asks after Lois leaves with her father.

"What?" Clark's not quite sure why he's alarmed, only that the mere thought makes his skin prickle and his heart race unpleasantly. "No, of course not. Why would you think that?"

Lois is loud. And annoying. And has no sense of boundaries.

"My mistake," his mom says but she studies him for several seconds longer as if she's not quite sure he knows what he's talking about.

"Mom. If Lois was my soulmate, don't you think I'd know that?" he asks. It's not a denial, as he'll realise years later, he never once denies it. His subconscious knows better than he ever will.

She smiles a little ruefully. "I guess you would."

**/**

4.

"A soulmate mark is most unexpected," Jor-El says.

Clark, never on the best of terms with the AI, folds his arms across his chest. "Why? Because my soulmate must be human?"

"No, because soulmates are much rarer on Krypton than they are on Earth. Less than one in five thousand." While Clark is still reeling from that little titbit, Jor-El continues. "It is of no matter."

For the first time since the shape of the mark appeared on his skin, Clark finds he disagrees. "It matters to me."

"You cannot allow this to distract you, my son."

As conversations with Jor-El usually go, so this one does, disintegrating in short order. Jor-El, programmed as such, feels no emotion and attributes no weight to its importance; Clark, living and breathing, is eternally mistrustful of the AI, so wilfully misunderstands.

**/**


End file.
